clubs. We went 20-0 with Nick as our 2 back and won Vienna’s first two Championships at the B level in it’s 40 year existence.
We now encourage parents at the beginning of the season to tell us in one sentence what we need to know about their kids. After that, the Buddy Allison rule is in full force and effect.
#3 George and Ricky
Nice wheels
George Casey is a local dentist and one of the smartest coaches I know. We worked together off and on in the early 80’s, but we really got together for a great run in 1994. He and Ricky Lipscomb were the first coaches under the 150 lb program to consistently beat Maryland teams in the Washington Area Metropolitan Super Bowl (Metro Bowl).
George and Ricky believed in three things:
Get great players
Run well designed plays
Work hard against the best talent available
George and Ricky were great “X’s and O’s” guys and would teach me the base offense, defense and rules we would use throughout our career:
Ran north and south with an I formation, more commonly referred to as jamming the ball down people’s throats. You know, “real” football.
Used strong tough full backs as battering rams.
Ran 60-70% of the time and had a great passing game,which kept teams off balance. They would throw short and long and the combo routes were easy read routes.
Their teams could hit every part of the field, quickly.
They prepared for other teams like no one else. George could tell you where the coaches had dinner the night before. Ricky and George had film on everyone and studied it thoroughly.
George had a staff that NFL teams would envy and everyone knew his job.
George, his staff and players were totally focused and immune to things like weather,field conditions or opponents.
The team and coaches’ work ethic was unstoppable. They just plain out worked everyone else.
George would leave the defense to me but I learned most of it FROM him, and by trial and error over the years.
At the Vienna Inn, Ricky and George would lay out plays using Sweet and Low packets (pink) and I would lay out my defense with sugar packets. They would throw out their new play and I would have to defend the play using our defensive rules and reads. Sugar always won.
Changes before the big game
One day George showed up at my office before a big game with a new defense written on one of those pads ” From the desk of George Casey” with a little tooth on it. He was pumped. It was a perfect 6 - 3 with 2 corners and a safety. It was the best defense I have ever seen- for TWELVE guys. When he realized what he had done, he tried to snatch the letter back. Too late, it sat on my “wall of shame” next to the $3 check from Billy Kidwell for a golfing debt.
Stopping Speed
We heard there was a team in DC that nobody would play. Theywere thrown out of the Capital Beltway League and the Jabbo Kenner League in DC. George would play anybody that had speed so down New Hampshire Ave.we went.The field looked like a war zone—the buildings were boarded up, the pool had come out of the ground at the small community center, and there was a dice game going on by the school. From around the building, comes the team. They had nice uniformsand marched in two straight rows. They looked disciplined. Their coaches wore long black leather trench coats. At first glance, they didn’t look that big, but they sure did look fast.
The first play from scrimmage taught me everything I needed to know about speed.They ran a wing T which is known for misdirection. At the snap of the ball, it looked like bees going everywhere. I have never seen kids go in so many directions so quick. The back was around their corner and he was gone. We really had never seen that kind of speed and we had a 40 game winning streak. Time for an epiphany and instructions on the fly: “Split the field in half, everybody stay home. Right side: worry about whoever comes to your side. Left side, do the same. If flow goes away, look for misdirection. Later Ray Gordon would come in with a term “BCR: Boot, Counter, Reverse” that we all use. Middle guard and Middle linebacker have the QB. “If he keeps it, break down and kill him.” As GOD as my witness they never got out of the backfield again and I learned the key element of beating speed: Speed is only speed, if the ball carrier gets out of the backfield.
We worked on breaking down, trapping and killing. We beat the team 7 TDs to 1 that night and never worried about playing speed again.
Last But Not Least: Pops
“It’s what you learn after you know everything.”
John Wooten
By 2001 we had experienced a lot of success so I was pretty full of myself. Nelson “Pops” Berry was sitting on some dummies at the first day of tryouts that year. Pops coached with the dream team of coaches back in the 60’s and 70’s. Tom Cook, Joe Hall, Bruce Spiro, John Wooden and Pops were legends in Vienna.
I hadn’t seen him in years. I asked: “Coach, do you want to yell at these kids”. He gets up off the dummies and started yelling and waving his cane around. He scared the hell out of me and the players. The 60’s were back. He took those kids over the hill and all we heard was yelling and crying. That group was never the same. That was the year we won Vienna’s first central championship.
Pops stayed with me for a few years and then moved to North Carolina, but every Sunday we talked. Here’s a powerful Sunday conversation:
Pops: ” There is a big difference between Athletic Arrogance and Arrogance.”
Casey: “Stop”
